


Anahata

by slacktension



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M, Light Bondage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 00:22:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slacktension/pseuds/slacktension
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She understands airbending best when she’s with Mako. It’s not just the recall of wind breaking free from the taut skin of her knuckles or her throat turning raw with a scream; it’s better now, the explosive kick dulled into the pleasantly sharp rise of his chest as it fills with air.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anahata

The wind outside is brisk and sharp, singing with the rattle of the octagonal window in Korra’s bedroom. It whips and whistles over the cresting sea waves and through the bare trees, one last call of the dying winter reluctantly melting into spring. Large, grey clouds travel fast overhead, changing the reading light in Korra’s room from pale lemon sunlight to the electric, shadowy dark of a storm.

 _There won’t be a storm_ , she hears Tenzin’s voice say in her mind,  _ignore the weather and study. My family and I will be attending a luncheon in the city and I expect your reading to be done by then._

Korra sighs on her bed and turns another onion skin page in the old tome, paper crackling and sparking faint dust motes into the air that glitter in the fragile sunlight. They die as the clouds shift over the sun and the words melt into the dark shade of the page, so Korra leans her chin in her hand and shuts her eyes for a break.

She tries to recall some previous information from her studies, things about  _airbending is associated with touch, and therefore connected to the skin; it is associated with actions of the hands (see airbending exercises in chapter 5), and therefore is connected to the hands -_

Korra snorts out a laugh and thinks that she would rather put those practices of touch and skin and hands into action, rather than read clinical descriptors of love in a book.

 

She understands airbending best when she’s with Mako. It’s not just the recall of wind breaking free from the taut skin of her knuckles or her throat turning raw with a scream; it’s better now, the explosive kick dulled into the pleasantly sharp rise of his chest as it fills with air. It’s a different kind of life from fire: air is the life they can share when it’s just the two of them, alone and sighing.

So she remembers the night before, with his mouth leaving a lazy trail over the planes of her stomach, a path cut for the first time earlier in the week. Without giving it too much thought, she carded her fingers through his hair with one hand, tugging upwards to keep his head from going farther, and -  _his head lifted, jaw going slack with a soft gasp, wet mouth popping open and his eyes half lidded, the flared embers of his iris catching the light and sparking with his caught breath._

 _Can I try that on you? she asked, and the mask of pleasure crashed away into a series of rapid blinks, flushed skin turning red as he nodded_.

She remembers all the different breaths of sound pulled from his chest, his heart, one of her favorites being the low hiss when she favored a kiss to his hipbone just to deny him a little longer.

The heavy tread of footsteps pushes the memory away and Korra opens her eyes to find the sun back again, bolting up in bed and looking down at her book, heart sinking. She’s only into chapter seven and Tenzin will be disappointed.

The footsteps grow louder and her bedroom door clacks open - “Hey,  _knock_   _first_  -,” she says, but her words die when she finds Mako crossing over the threshold.

He’s dressed in the sharp, tailored cut of his uniform, because  _right, he’s on duty,_ the last place he should be is her bedroom. The brassy armor at his forearms, shoulders, and calves catch the dull sunlight and she imagines that the glow turns the metal soft and hot to mold around his skin. He tugs the braces at his forearms as if the uniform burns him after giving her a quick smile.

“I’ve got forty minutes left on my break,” he says breathlessly, and she finally notices the dash caked with blood on his mouth.

He is all askew with a swollen bottom lip and bruised cheek, hair tossed and matted from the wind and his hat. His skin is pale with all the sharp points of his nose, cheekbones, and fingers burned pink with the cold.

She slips from her bed and cups his face, a little  _too_  hard as her fingers find the warm resistance of the bruise on his cheek. He winces once but freezes, all taut muscles coiled and breath held in anticipation for _something_. All is still save for the shift of light, a cloud outside rolling over the sun. Korra watches him for a moment with quiet interest in the dark before her concern takes over. 

“What happened?” she asks.

His eyes find her and he holds out his anticipation for a second longer, waiting. The sunlight returns and he looks away with a sigh, straightening his back as her hand slips away.

“Ran into a scrape with a guy robbing a bank. The Chief cleared me to finish my shift, it’s nothing to worry about. Want to…?”

He doesn’t finish the sentence - so far, he never has. He relies on the flicker of a look and half finished phrases to communicate what he wants to her. She just snorts out a laugh and rolls her eyes, letting her hand cup along the back of his neck - hot and damp with sweat, fingers edging into the black at his hairline - and brings him down for a rough kiss.

The kisses are sloppy because for once, he has no patience. He works away his uniform and it first falls with sharp, metallic clangs, chased after by the soft rustle of thick, dark red fabric. She turns him around and pushes him towards the bed, the backs of his knees bumping against the mattress and he pulls away, tugging the hem of his white undershirt free from his pants. Korra takes a step back to watch him as his skin appears, splotched with bruises and a long, raspberry scrape of dried blood adorns his left side. 

“Is that nothing to worry about?” she asks.

“What?” he says, head popping free from his collar, and he stretches his arms over his head as he struggles to pull them from the shirt. He knots his hands inside the fabric and he tips, falling back onto the bed, the wind knocked from his lungs and the mattress creaking.

Korra laughs for a moment before leaning over him, one knee digging into his side.

“Need some help with that?” she asks and lifts her hands, but he shifts away.

“It’s fine,” he says, voice tight and flat. His words hang there and he looks at her, trying to will the plea away from his expression -  _he wants it like this?_

She stills and frowns, tilting her head. “Are you sure?”

“We don’t have a lot of time left,” he says.

His ears burn red and he looks away, up at the ceiling. A shimmer of sweat has already collected on his body from work, and it catches the last of the dying sunlight with a gleam, a body heated and pliable under her hands. Her eyes rake over the lines of his arms, hands bound behind his head and boxing the sides of his face. They shift as she watches and his breath grows shallow in the dark. He’s calming down.

She knows how to encourage him, and all it takes now is the sharp curve of her smile and a low laugh.

She stands straight and she drums her fingers at his sides and he gets the hint, lifting his hips so she can leave him bare and exposed. It’s a good look for him, she decides, and takes a moment for herself to appreciate the boy stretched out before her.

It’s interesting to see him lying there, muscles fluttering with an impatience he tries to hold back. She lets him watch her as she tugs off the rest of her own clothes, bindings slipping free, pants shuffling off. She has to laugh when she tugs her ties from her hair, watching his eyebrows tip up and arms flex because he loves to let down her hair.

“The shirt thing was your idea,” she teases, kneeling onto the bed and boxing his legs between her knees. “No whining about it.”

His mouth opens with a silent gasp as her hands dance over his bruised ribs, muscles locking to prepare for a stab of pain from her fingers. She’s fascinated by his reactions now, and experimentally hovers her hands over his skin in touches so soft they might not exist at all.

He exhales with relief when her hands spread; her touch is soft.

“I’m not whining,” he says.

She leans over him, lips brushing his ear, “Not yet.”

She lets her fingers sink into the undulating valleys of his ribs, and his mouth drops open in a surprised gasp. She ducks her head to mold the soft, parted flesh of his lips into a kiss. He shakily sighs into it and lifts his head for her; she enjoys the heat of his mouth that she breathes into life, the glide of his lips under hers. 

Her hands roam, brushing against the soft, half-healed scab at his side and he jerks at the touch but melts in an instant with a dull moan. She mutters an apology for hurting him but he says nothing back; only a raspy tug of air slips from his throat. 

When the hard heel of her palm presses into the dark bruise on his hip, he yelps, and her hands fly away.

“Are you ok?” she asks.

His face twists, eyes shut and bottom lip caught between his teeth. Slowly he unfurls himself like a sigh of smoke, breathing deep, head falling back against the pillows with his eyes dully locked on the ceiling. The cut on his lip awakens and his tongue darts out to taste it.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he says.

She sits back on his hips gently - there’s a slight twitch in response, then a more purposeful thrust - but something’s been off since he stepped in and Korra intends to find out what it is, so she stays still.

She watches him sigh gently, arms slacking as far as they can inside the brace of his shirt. She knows that if she cuts him off now, leaves him at the peak of his heat, he’ll give in. His eyebrows knit and he runs his tongue over his lip again, thinking, before -

“I like that,” he says, eyes on her.

“You like what?”

He frowns and looks away, but he can’t afford the time to find the right words. “When it hurts.”

“What?”

He sighs. “You know, when you…when you get all rough. It feels good.”

She blinks and nods. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

She’s not surprised. She figured as much, finding out early on that he likes to be under her, likes having to crane his neck to reach her mouth, moans with each bite placed along his lips and neck. 

It’s hearing him admit it out loud that freezes her limbs and raises a gale inside her, and her lungs fill to burst with a smile on her lips because Mako is wonderful.

“So, you like this?” she asks, and her hands grip his hips again, palms digging into the hard cut of his bones.

He only hisses through his teeth and nods.

Her kisses turn raw, easy and slick for a moment before her teeth capture his torn bottom lip, fingers pushing and pulling into the tender stretches of his skin like a gust punching a sail full of air. He twists under her, trying to squirm away from the strength of her rough palms but he moves under the demand of her control.

When he starts to get too loud, when the sounds he makes runs a pool of heat in her stomach and chest, she starts to catch his burning and she slips onto him. His breathing is high and laced with the vibrations of his grunts and moans, a small whine slipping here and there and he winces each time, because she wants to hear more and he’s just an instrument she’s learning to play.

She watches his lungs fill, his torso hollow out, a push and pull of air that sings from his throat louder than the air outside, vibrating like an Air Nomad mantra scratched on onion skin paper. A throaty chant of love and the torturous pain of living, but Mako doesn’t know those things from books. He is just a greedy fire fueled on the air that pours from Korra’s body, flickering with each turn of her hands, dying each time she painfully slows the movement of her hips. She watches the tendons in his neck shift as he tips his head back, sees the way his mouth grows slack as he holds his breath, waits to nearly snuff him out before sliding back down and fueling him again.

When she claws her fingernails down the front of his chest just to see his back arch again, he curves like a punch has knocked into his gut, body rolling and the pace growing faster. He moves beneath her quickly, frantic and eager to match her. She leans over him press her body close, sucking a wet kiss onto his neck, adding more bruises for later when his voice tries to rise above his own sighs.

“Slap me.”

She doesn’t waste time they don’t have with questions, too thrilled with his begging to care. She straightens, sinks back down on him, and takes a moment only to consider  _where_.

His head keeps rolling from side to side within the boxed confines of his own arms. She never stops rolling her hips as she watches him, and his head rests against his left arm, eyes nearly shut but finding the strength to look at her. He starts to slow down, so she slaps her hand across the side of his face and he groans loudly.

He keeps his face pressed against his arm so she can keep moving, watching the bloom of red spread across his cheekbone, down to the corner of his mouth, open and panting. He’s strung tight and quickly unraveling. Just watching him so close to his breaking point starts to undo her, all her power and strength melting away until she’s a burning shimmer of nerves twisting in the air. She curves her back and presses on his bruised hips, palms laid against his scratched chest, letting her body swell and crest.

He comes shortly after, collapsing in on himself, flaring one last time with a moan of her name before dimming, letting himself be carried on the last few twitches and curves of her body like a fluff of ash caught on a lazy summer breeze.

She leans over him, foreheads touching and listening to their uneven breathing mingle together, feeling the heat from their bodies grow trapped between their skin. Her eyes flicker up to catch his and she smiles.

“You look ridiculous,” she says.

He’s had his hands tied behind his head for far too long for his embarrassment to not incite a bubble of laughter from her. He shrugs as best he can and looks away, his own smile bashful and lopsided.

“Yeah, well. Help me?” he asks, smile growing, eyes wide - he knows exactly what he’s doing and it works.

She kisses his cheek, the one she slapped, and nods.

To save time, she helps him get dressed and heals the newly visible bruises and swells on his skin. His collar is high enough to hide the red splotches on his neck and she’s happy with that, kissing them through the soft fabric of his undershirt as he scoffs and rolls his eyes.

She stands on the tips of her toes to place his hat on, and she takes a step back to look him over. He stands up straight and tensed under her inspection, just like before all tied up, and she imagines his muscles shifting under the red and brass.

“Fit for duty?” he asks.

“Fit for duty,” she nods, “And good luck, officer,” she says, saluting, and he drops the stance to laugh. He’s all smiles and easy laughter now, stress melted from his body and cooled under her hands. It’s sweet and makes her heart flutter.

“So, I’ll see you tonight?” he asks.

She shrugs, trying to sound disinterested. “Yeah, maybe.”

They laugh and he gives her one last lazy, wet kiss good bye before turning on his heel and walking out. She leans against the threshold, licking her lips and watching the way his uniform shifts over his body before he turns down the hallway and out of sight.

When Korra turns around to see her room bathed in sunlight again, she finds her textbook on the floor. She stands over it, craning her neck to read the page it had fallen on -  _Chapter Nine: the Anahata Chakra in Practice_.

She toes the book closed with her foot, shuffling off responsibility, having studied enough for one day.


End file.
